Rooflights and skylights in Sawston

That is a different starting point from the Victorian terraces of central Cambridge. A postwar estate house was built to a standard plan, often as a pair of semis or a short terrace of three or four, with generous gardens and a roof shaped for economy rather than for looks. Many of those houses have since been bought by the families who rented them, extended at the back, and sold on, so a single close can now hold every stage of that story: an original kitchen, a flat roofed extension from the 1980s, a loft room with a roof window, and a large new rear addition with a lantern over the dining table.

Around the estates sit two other kinds of Sawston house. The older village centre along the High Street keeps Victorian and earlier buildings. Sawston Hall is a Tudor house, and Sawston Village College, opened in 1930, was the first village college. On the edges, newer estates have added homes built this century. We cover all three, but this page leans on the estate houses because they are where the question of daylight through the roof comes up most plainly. Our rooflight and skylight installation service across Cambridge treats each one as a light problem first and a roofing job second.

On a typical single storey extension of 3 to 4 metres, windows and doors in the new back wall light the far end well. The problem is the strip nearest the old house, where the kitchen worktop and sink often end up. A roof lantern or a flat roof rooflight set close to that old wall line puts daylight exactly where the side windows cannot reach. Pushed out to the middle of the extension, the same glass lights a floor that was already bright and does nothing for the worktop.

Orientation changes what the glass should be. Estate roads were laid out in curves and cul de sacs, so neighbouring houses in the same close can face quite different ways. If your garden runs south, a lantern over the dining area will take strong midday sun from spring to early autumn, and it needs solar control glass and probably a blind. If the garden faces north, the rooflight becomes the main source of warmth and brightness through the winter months, and clear, low-E glass lets in as much of that low sun as possible. East facing extensions get a bright breakfast and a softer afternoon; west facing ones catch long evening sun in summer that can glare across a television or a table. Our guide to which way a skylight should face covers the pattern, and at the survey we check it against the room you actually have.

Parts of the older centre of a village like this may fall within a conservation area, and some individual buildings are listed. We do not guess at the status of any street: we check the current conservation area maps and the listed building register for your address before the design goes any further. If the house is inside a conservation area, rooflights on a slope facing the road can need planning permission where the same unit on the rear slope might not. If the building is listed, any change to the roof needs listed building consent, whichever slope it is on.

For those roofs a flush fitting conservation rooflight with a slim frame and a central glazing bar is the usual starting point, because it sits down into the tiles or slates rather than proud of them. The light plan still comes first. A Victorian terrace on the High Street has the same deep, narrow plan as its Cambridge cousins, and a single well placed rooflight over a rear room or a landing can do more than two large ones on the front. Sawston Hall is a reminder of how far back building in the village goes, and the planning officers who look after the older centre are working to protect that character.

For a house outside a conservation area, rooflights and roof windows usually count as permitted development under Class C, provided they project no more than 150mm from the roof plane, sit no higher than the highest part of the roof, and any side facing window is obscure glazed and fixed below 1.7m above the floor. A lantern on a new extension is normally assessed as part of that extension. The picture changes for flats and maisonettes, which do not have the same householder rights, and for any house where rights have been removed by condition or where the building is listed. Our guide to planning permission for rooflights goes through the cases.

Building Regulations apply whatever the planning answer. A new opening in the roof touches structure, insulation, fire safety near a boundary or party wall and, over a stairwell, safety glazing. We handle the Building Control notification where the work is notifiable, and install to the current Building Regulations for rooflights, including the Part L limit on heat loss through the glass.

Can I fit a roof window in a former council house in Sawston?

Usually, yes. If you own the freehold of a house, a roof window on the rear slope is normally permitted development, and Building Control is notified for the structural and thermal work. The roof construction decides how the opening is framed, so we check it from the loft first. Leasehold flats need the freeholder's consent and usually a planning application.

Is my house near the High Street in a conservation area?

It may be, and we check rather than guess. Greater Cambridge Shared Planning publishes the conservation area maps, and the national list shows whether a building is listed. We confirm both for your address before recommending a product, because the answer can change which slope and which unit are sensible.

Which way should a skylight face over a Sawston kitchen extension?

On a flat roofed extension the glass faces the sky, so the real choice is where it sits and which glass it uses. Place it near the old back wall to light the worktop, then pick solar control glass for a south facing garden or clear low-E glass for a north facing one.